President Donald Trump's nominee for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Jeff Mateer, who is coming under fire as news reports today are surfacing past remarks that reveal a record of extreme hostility toward the LGBT community.
Mateer's past remarks have refered to transgender children as part of "Satan's plan," compared same-sex marriage to bestiality, endorsed the controversial and widely-condemned practice of conversion therapy and shown an extensive record of putting religious beliefs above the rule of law.
The nomination of Jeff Mateer is the Trump administration’s latest slap in the face with respect to the LGBT community. It’s also another example of this administration’s brazen crusade to stack our courts with extremists dedicated to dismantling rights and protections for the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in the country.
Unfortunately, the nomination of someone with Mateer’s explicitly homophobic and transphobic record can no longer be described as shocking – rather, it’s part of a larger pattern of actions by this administration that seek to turn back the clock with respect to the progress that this country has made on issues of LGBT equality.
Lambda Legal is committed to defending LGBT people from every attack by this administration, including its attempt to seize control of the federal courts for generations to come. We will work alongside our allies on Capitol Hill and sound the alarm across the country to ensure Americans know the dangers of these nominations.
In a detailed story published by CNN today, Mateer's record reveals an extreme record of placing personal religious belief above the rule of law, and distorting notions of religious freedom to undermine and attack LGBT rights and protections.
According to the CNN story:
Jeff Mateer, the current first assistant attorney general of Texas, was serving at the time as general counsel of the First Liberty Institute, a religious liberty advocacy group known before 2016 as the Liberty Institute. He faced criticism from LGBT rights groups for his work with the organization, such as opposing the expansion of nondiscrimination protections to LGBT people in the city of Plano. ... Mateer said that the Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriage could lead to what he called "disgusting" new forms of matrimony.
